Zachary Taylor was the 12th president of the United States, serving from March 1849 until his death in July 1850. Taylor was a career officer in the U.S. Army, rose to the rank of major general and became a national hero as a result of his victories in the Mexican–American War. As president, Taylor kept his distance from Congress and his cabinet, even though partisan tensions threatened to divide the Union. He died 16 months into his term, having made no progress on the most divisive issue in Congress, slavery.
About Zachary Taylor in brief
Zachary Taylor was the 12th president of the United States, serving from March 1849 until his death in July 1850. Taylor was a career officer in the U.S. Army, rose to the rank of major general and became a national hero as a result of his victories in the Mexican–American War. As president, Taylor kept his distance from Congress and his cabinet, even though partisan tensions threatened to divide the Union. Despite being a Southerner and a slaveholder himself, Taylor did not push for the expansion of slavery, and sought sectional harmony above all other concerns. He urged settlers in New Mexico and California to bypass the territorial stage and draft constitutions for statehood. Taylor died suddenly of a stomach disease on July 9, 1850, with his administration having accomplished little aside from the ratification of the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty. Historians and scholars have ranked Taylor in the bottom quartile of U. S. presidents, owing in part to his short term of office, and he has been described as \”more a forgettable president than a failed one\”. Taylor was born on November 24, 1784, on a plantation in Orange County, Virginia, to a prominent family of planters of English ancestry. He was the third of five surviving sons in his family and had three younger sisters. His mother was Sarah Dabney Taylor, a Pilgrimflower descendant of the Plymouth Colony, and a signer of the Mayflower Compact. His father served as a lieutenant colonel in the American Revolution; and his cousin was James Madison, the fourth president.
Taylor’s family moved westward from Virginia to Louisville, Kentucky, in his youth; he was the last president born before the adoption of the Constitution. He grew up in a small cabin on the Ohio River until he moved to a small woodland house with his cousin, a brick house with a small brick house. His cousin was Robert E. Lee, a third cousin once removed of Confederate General Robert Lee, family of famous Confederate general. Taylor became a member of the Whig Party and served as its vice-presidential candidate in 1848. He won the general election alongside New York politician Millard Fillmore, defeating Democratic Party candidates Lewis Cass and William Orlando Butler, as well as a third-party effort led by former president Martin Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams, Sr. of the Free Soil Party. In 1848, Taylor became the first president to be elected without having served in a prior political office. He died 16 months into his term, having made no progress on the most divisive issue in Congress, slavery. He is buried in Louisville, KY. His son, Richard Taylor, was a colonial merchant and son-in-law of Isaac Allerton Jr. and Isaac Brewster, Jr., a Mayflower descendant, and son of Mayflower merchant and Isaac Fearerton Jr., the son of Pilgrim Isaac Brewerton, Jr. The family moved to Ohio in the early 1800s.
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